How Should We Struggle Against the Climate Crisis?

By Betsy Bowman

What should we do? Is it enough to compost, buy organic, and drive a Prius? Harness big oil and cut back on fossil fuels? Naomi Klein says our measures must also transform capitalism. And while debating that, what do we do about San Miguel communities made ill by contamination as our aquifers dry up? Is the problem injustice or sheer survival? Or both? Cynicism and despair are too easy. Next week the Center for Global Justice events take on the challenging part: solutions.

The Tuesday panel “Thank You, Naomi—So What Shall We Do?” takes on the job left us by Naomi Klein’s best-seller, which lays out the problem. Environmental activist César Arias has long sounded alarms on San Miguel’s problems of inequality and water; he offers solutions. Georgeanne Johnson, a member of the Bioneers, looks at “the big picture” to identify ways out. Atahualpa Caldera, a leader in GAIA—a local eco-village devoted to environmental education—offers results of local solutions that work.

On Wednesday, we sample the celebrated television series Years of Living Dangerously, James Cameron’s (Avatar) beautifully assembled and (for mainstream TV) honest overview. Good-faith fundamentalist deniers; bad-faith oil-giant deniers; Obama; a conservative New York Times columnist; Arnold Schwarzenegger; Harrison Ford; foreign heads of state and many more, all get their time before Cameron’s skeptical camera. A striking first episode exposes the Syrian conflict’s environmental sub-text.

On Saturday, in Spanish, Graciela “Chela” Martinez will describe grassroots struggles of rural Mexicans to survive. Chela and co-workers at CEDESA (Centro de Desarrollo Agropecuario) recently celebrated 50 years fighting poverty in northern Guanajuato, inspired by liberation theology. After 47 years at it, Chela still builds communities around recycling water, low-fuel stoves, solar heaters, dry toilets, and rain catchment. Just by surviving, dozens of indigenous villages resist migration pressures generated by NAFTA and local agri-business.